I don’t know why, but it still amazes me how Batiuk will spend an entire week on boring, inconsequential stuff like Adeela and Wally sitting in a library, and then just completely skip over what a character who’s been missing for years like Rana has been doing with an “. . . and so”. I mean, what led up to that sentence? “I was disgusted by the decadence of western civilization, and so . . .”. “I’ve been spending a lot of time on ISIS message boards, and so . . .”. “I found out the actor who played Moon Mile Meek was a Muslim, and so . . .”.

I like how casual Batiuk depicts personal religious conversation and completely changing your worldview and lifestyle. He makes it sound like how you choose your sports team. ” . . . And so I became a Patriots fan. After all, it was the team of my family.”. I don’t really think this is how people work, usually. “Well, I was adopted as a baby and don’t really have any memories of my birth family, but I’m assuming they were Muslim, so I’ll become Muslim too.”.

Oh, yeah, and apparently Wally has zero idea what’s going on in his daughter’s life, which is just amazing. Although not at all remarkable.

20 responses to “. . . And So, It Drags On”

“You were completely absent and totally worthless as a father figure after you came home, so I decided…”. There, now it’s interesting. Unfortunately the guy who writes this thing doesn’t do “interesting” thus this surprise father-daughter reunion is as dull, pointless and stupid as everything else that happens in this strip.

It apparently wasn’t enough for Wally to learn that Adeela’s traditional Muslim garb didn’t totally define her as a person, he has to have that point rammed home by having his long-lost (even though they both lived in the same town all along, mind you) daughter suddenly reappear clad in (you guessed it) traditional Muslim garb. This is cheap and gimmicky even by FW’s sub-basement-level standards, why bring the Rana character back at all if you’re just going to turn her into a cheap stereotype to further an already hopelessly inept story like this one? It’s goddamned sad what passes for a FW prestige arc these days, I’ll tell you what.

Rana: …and so I woke up the day after prom in this cafe, with this hijab, a backpack full of grad school books, and a disturbingly overwhelming desire to be a teacher like Mr. Moore. The calendar in here says it is 2018?! Where did the last 6 and a half years go?

Wally: You only lost 6 and a half years? I lost almost 12… though it went fast, felt more like 2 years.

Rana: Well, I mean, I don’t really remember anything until my freshman year of high school either, so maybe this is just a thing with me. My family back in Afghanistan was Muslim, right? You actually met them and I was too young to remember anything then.

Back in the prestige days, Batiuk would have tied all of this into a super dramatic arc about Rana having decided to hide her conversion from her PTSD Dad for fear of triggering him, and now finally feeling comfortable coming out as Muslim.

Now it’s all benign small talk, every conflict glossed over with wry passive acceptance.

The sad thing is that we’ll look back at this one with something like fondness when Batiuk does put her in contact with students and parents. The horrible theatrics about bigotry I can foresee stagger the mind.

RANA: I saw the unending misery that Allah inflicts on you Christians and so I decided I wanted to return to the Muslim religion.
WALLY: Oh, no, that’s not god, it’s just Batiuk.
RANA: Same difference.
ADEELA: I do not understand that idiom.

So did Wally and Becky forceably convert Rana from Islam in the first place? There is a Muslim presence in Northeastern Ohio. I would think that intelligent and caring parents would honor the memory of Rana’s family and enable her to grow up in the faith she was born in … oh, wait. We’re talking about self-absorbed Westviewians here.

And it’s been mentioned above, but shouldn’t Wally already know all of this or is there a restraining order against Wally that TomBa was neglected to tell us about.

“And so I decided I wanted to return to the Muslim religion …After all, my doctor said the mandatory daily Sacred Jog of the Church of St. Lisa the Cancer Chew Toy was damaging my knees and could predispose me to arthritis in later life.” Fixed it.